It's a fruitful yield at DuPage Convalescent Center

Hidden behind the DuPage Convalescent Center in Wheaton, a winding path bordered by bright flowers leads to what insiders sometimes call the “secret garden.”

Plantings surround a fountain and a gazebo invites visitors to sit and soak in the tranquil beauty, while in the center are the vegetable beds where tomatoes ripen on the vine, cucumbers grow long enough to eat and carrots wave their green tops.

Some of these carefully tended vegetables will win ribbons at the DuPage County Fair this week. Others will go to the People's Resource Center food pantry to feed the hungry, or be sold to convalescent center staff. Many will be given to family and friends. All provide a sense of satisfaction to the 55 resident gardeners who care for them.

“Here's a way for them to take something they did themselves and give back,” said Henry Parker, the convalescent center's recreation coordinator who is in charge of the center's Garden Club.

“It's one of the most meaningful things a lot of people get a chance to do.”

Philip Schiller, a resident of the convalescent center for 30 years, has been planting vegetables since the garden was started 29 years ago.

“Being in nature,” he says about what he enjoys about tending his raised bed of tomatoes, onions, carrots and jalapeño and bell peppers.

Resident gardener Kathleen Pryor, who voluntarily weeds the beds of those who cannot weed their own, said she is spending her seventh summer in the garden. She is growing eggplant as one of her vegetables at the request of a convalescent center nurse.

“I mostly sell my vegetables,” she said. “(I like) just the sense of being outside, watching everything grow.”

Parker said all of the center's 380 residents are encouraged to use the garden whether they help tend it or not. Even dementia and Alzheimer's patients enjoy being among the plantings, he said.

“It's a very high sensory thing,” he said.

Growing garden

Family members and volunteers have contributed to the garden. Red geraniums poke out of one of two vertical gardens built by an Eagle Scout last year. A contribution made by the Bloomingdale Garden Club went toward the purchase of a small greenhouse this year that allows residents to start their seeds early and transplant their veggies in May.

“Every couple years, we add on something else,” Parker said. “Every year we expand a little more.”

When the convalescent center started as County Alms House for the indigent in 1888, residents farmed the property and grew food for themselves and the county jail. But the center had long since become a nursing facility and no garden existed when Parker joined the staff 30 years ago.

“It was all grass and dirt,” he remembered.

The garden started a year after Parker came, and he's overseen it for 15 years. A dozen master gardeners with the University of Illinois Extension Service have lent their expertise to the garden's design and speak on various topics at the garden club's weekly meetings, Parker said.

“They've changed everything. They've made the quality of life wonderful here,” he said. “We wouldn't have the greenhouse without the master gardeners.”

Linda Kunesh, a master gardener who started working with the center three years ago and a member of the Bloomingdale Garden Club, said fellow club members were impressed when she brought them to visit the garden this year.

“They were just amazed at how beautiful the garden was,” she said. “Not many nursing homes have a garden.”

As she has gotten to know convalescent center gardeners, Kunesh said she has seen some talk more when they are outside among the planting beds.

“It gives them an opportunity to forget about their limitations,” she said. “It's just amazing to see people happy and engaged with their garden.”

Profitable produce

Open April to November, the garden includes 35 individual, wheelchair-accessible raised beds and five unit gardens that are shared by groups of residents.

Individual gardeners pay a $15 fee to plant their 6-foot-by-30-inch plot with five vegetables or flowers of their choice. The annual fee also enables them to go on monthly field trips and enter produce in the DuPage County Fair.

“Almost everybody does (enter the fair). Last year, we had over 30 ribbons,” Parker said.

Prize money won by residents is theirs to keep. Sales of veggies to convalescent center staff help fund an end-of-season party in October. Volunteers also have helped residents turn their homegrown veggies into salsa and zucchini bread, Parker said.

Many of the residents have had gardens of their own in the past, said volunteer Karen Harris, a former grower with Ball Seed and Parker's right hand green thumb.

“They are very willing to share that knowledge with you,” she said.

Resident gardener Debbie Ermilio said she hadn't had much opportunity to garden as an adult before starting at the center three years ago, but that her mother had been a gardener.

“I wanted my garden to grow big like hers,” she said.

Ermilio said she has learned from Parker and the master gardeners, and last year took a ribbon at the DuPage County Fair for her tomatoes.

“What I can't eat, I give to friends and family,” she said. “(I enjoy) being proud of what I do.”